H Beam Piper

Little Fuzzy H Beam Piper

Little Fuzzy is a 1962 science fiction novel by H. Beam Piper, now in public domain. It was nominated for the 1963 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

The story revolves around determining whether a small furry species discovered on the planet Zarathustra is sapient, and features a mild libertarianism that emphasizes sincerity and honesty.

The book was followed by a sequel, Fuzzy Sapiens (original title The Other Human Race) published in 1964, the same year that Piper committed suicide.

In the wake of Piper's suicide, rumor spread of a lost "second sequel"; in 1981, at the behest of Ace Books, William Tuning produced the critically acclaimed Fuzzy Bones. Ace also hired Ardath Mayhar in 1982 to write Golden Dreams: A Fuzzy Odyssey, which tells the events of Little Fuzzy from the viewpoint of the Fuzzies (or Gashta, as they call themselves).

Later, Piper's lost manuscript was discovered, and published in 1984 as Fuzzies and Other People.

A new volume in the series, Fuzzy Ergo Sum by Wolfgang Diehr, was published by Pequod Press in April 2011. A second book, Caveat Fuzzy was released in August 2012. A third installment, this time by Wolfgang Diehr & well known Piper historian John F. Carr, titled Fuzzy Conundrum, published in 2016. In 2011, John Scalzi published Fuzzy Nation, which he described as a "reboot" of Piper's original. (wikipedia.org)